Metaphysical Bible Interpretation of Deuteronomy Chapter 32
Metaphysically Interpreting Deuteronomy 32:1-47
32:1Give ear, ye heavens, and I will speak;
And let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
32:2My doctrine shall drop as the rain;
My speech shall distil as the dew,
As the small rain upon the tender grass,
And as the showers upon the herb.
32:3For I will proclaim the name of Jehovah:
Ascribe ye greatness unto our God.
32:4The Rock, his work is perfect;
For all his ways are justice:
A God of faithfulness and without iniquity,
Just and right is he.
32:5They have dealt corruptly with him, they are not his children, it is their blemish;
They are a perverse and crooked generation.
32:6Do ye thus requite Jehovah,
O foolish people and unwise?
Is not he thy father that hath bought thee?
He hath made thee, and established thee.
32:7Remember the days of old,
Consider the years of many generations:
Ask thy father, and he will show thee;
Thine elders, and they will tell thee.
32:8When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance,
When he separated the children of men,
He set the bounds of the peoples
According to the number of the children of Israel.
32:9For Jehovah's portion is his people;
Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.32:10He found him in a desert land,
And in the waste howling wilderness;
He compassed him about, he cared for him,
He kept him as the apple of his eye.
32:11As an eagle that stirreth up her nest,
That fluttereth over her young,
He spread abroad his wings, he took them,
He bare them on his pinions.
32:12Jehovah alone did lead him,
And there was no foreign god with him.
32:13He made him ride on the high places of the earth,
And he did eat the increase of the field;
And he made him to suck honey out of the rock,
And oil out of the flinty rock;
32:14Butter of the herd, and milk of the flock,
With fat of lambs,
And rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats,
With the finest of the wheat;
And of the blood of the grape thou drankest wine.
32:15But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked:
Thou art waxed fat, thou art grown thick, thou art become sleek;
Then he forsook God who made him,
And lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.
32:16They moved him to jealousy with strange gods;
With abominations provoked they him to anger.
32:17They sacrificed unto demons, which were no God,
To gods that they knew not,
To new gods that came up of late,
Which your fathers dreaded not.
32:18Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful,
And hast forgotten God that gave thee birth.32:19And Jehovah saw it, and abhorred them,
Because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters.
32:20And he said, I will hide my face from them,
I will see what their end shall be:
For they are a very perverse generation,
Children in whom is no faithfulness.
32:21They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God;
They have provoked me to anger with their vanities:
And I will move them to jealousy with those that are not a people;
I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.
32:22For a fire is kindled in mine anger,
And burneth unto the lowest Sheol,
And devoureth the earth with its increase,
And setteth on fire the foundations of the mountains.
32:23I will heap evils upon them;
I will spend mine arrows upon them:
32:24They shall be wasted with hunger,
and devoured with burning heat
And bitter destruction;
And the teeth of beasts will I send upon them,
With the poison of crawling things of the dust.
32:25Without shall the sword bereave,
And in the chambers terror;
It shall destroy both young man and virgin,
The suckling with the man of gray hairs.
32:26I said, I would scatter them afar,
I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men;
32:27Were it not that I feared the provocation of the enemy,
Lest their adversaries should judge amiss,
Lest they should say, Our hand is exalted,
And Jehovah hath not done all this.32:28For they are a nation void of counsel,
And there is no understanding in them.
32:29Oh that they were wise, that they understood this,
That they would consider their latter end!
32:30How should one chase a thousand,
And two put ten thousand to flight,
Except their Rock had sold them,
And Jehovah had delivered them up?
32:31For their rock is not as our Rock,
Even our enemies themselves being judges.
32:32For their vine is of the vine of Sodom,
And of the fields of Gomorrah:
Their grapes are grapes of gall,
Their clusters are bitter:
32:33Their wine is the poison of serpents,
And the cruel venom of asps.32:34Is not this laid up in store with me,
Sealed up among my treasures?
32:35Vengeance is mine, and recompense,
At the time when their foot shall slide:
For the day of their calamity is at hand,
And the things that are to come upon them shall make haste.32:36For Jehovah will judge his people,
And repent himself for his servants;
When he seeth that their power is gone,
And there is none remaining, shut up or left at large.
32:37And he will say, Where are their gods,
The rock in which they took refuge;
32:38Which did eat the fat of their sacrifices,
And drank the wine of their drink-offering?
Let them rise up and help you,
Let them be your protection.
32:39See now that I, even I, am he,
And there is no god with me:
I kill, and I make alive;
I wound, and I heal;
And there is none that can deliver out of my hand.
32:40For I lift up my hand to heaven,
v And say, As I live for ever,
32:41If I whet my glittering sword,
And my hand take hold on judgment;
I will render vengeance to mine adversaries,
And will recompense them that hate me.
32:42I will make mine arrows drunk with blood,
And my sword shall devour flesh;
With the blood of the slain and the captives,
From the head of the leaders of the enemy.32:43Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people:
For he will avenge the blood of his servants,
And will render vengeance to his adversaries,
And will make expiation for his land, for his people.32:44And Moses came and spake all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he, and Hoshea the son of Nun. 32:45And Moses made an end of speaking all these words to all Israel; 32:46And he said unto them, Set your heart unto all the words which I testify unto you this day, which ye shall command your children to observe to do, even all the words of this law. 32:47For it is no vain thing for you; because it is your life, and through this thing ye shall prolong your days in the land, whither ye go over the Jordan to possess it.
April 18, 1937: Deuteronomy 32:31-33
He who lives in sense consciousness, on the contrary, is subject to ups and downs. His feet entangled in the “vine of Sodom,” he understands nothing of the purposes of his life or why he craves stimulation and excitement. He wants joy, but confuses this high spiritual gift with sensuous pleasure and seeks it through sense channels. Meanwhile the Christ in man is calling him to true satisfaction. “If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink.” Rivers of living water flow from within the mind and heart of him who rejoices in inner Truth. The Holy Spirit consciousness satisfies man as nothing else can. This consciousness is gained through claiming it in faith (believing on the Christ).
– UNITY magazine.
September 6, 1942: Deuteronomy 32:31-33
What are “their rock” and “our Rock”? “Their rock” is the fundamental basis on which rest those who have forgotten that life is essentially spiritual and who accept materiality as the ultimate truth. “Our Rock” is Truth.
Metaphysically Interpreting Deuteronomy 32:48-52
32:48And Jehovah spake unto Moses that selfsame day, saying, 32:49Get thee up into this mountain of Abarim, unto mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is over against Jericho; and behold the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel for a possession; 32:50and die in the mount whither thou goest up, and be gathered unto thy people, as Aaron thy brother died in mount Hor, and was gathered unto his people: 32:51because ye trespassed against me in the midst of the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah of Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because ye sanctified me not in the midst of the children of Israel. 32:52For thou shalt see the land before thee; but thou shalt not go thither into the land which I give the children of Israel.
October 17, 1926: Deuteronomy 32:45-52
“Precious in the sight of Jehovah Is the death of his saints.” Is this a correct translation? No. In a translation of the Old Testament by Isaac Leeser, a translation after the best Jewish authorities, this text from Psalms 116:15 reads: “Grievous in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his pious ones.” This translation is no doubt the correct one; it is in accord with the teachings of the Bible as a whole, while the translation of this verse as found in our lesson text belies the truth of the Bible's teaching about life.
From the teaching of the Old Testament do we understand that man is living under the divine law? Christianity plainly teaches that man is not living under the divine law and that a concerted movement is under way for his reconciliation with it. This teaching is also revealed in the history of the Hebrew race. This redemptive movement has been going forward for thousands of years and its agents and methods are many. God is working with a mighty force of teachers to bring man to realize and to observe the law of his being. Two great movements have been set into operation. The first was inaugurated through Moses, the second through Jesus Christ.
What is the first step in restoring man to spiritual harmony and to physical health? The first step in permanent healing is a change of mind. Moses is paralleled by John the Baptist, who proclaimed, “Repent ye,” which means, “Change your mind.” The life stream in the whole race has been vitiated by the lusts of the imagination. “Every one that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” The race thought must be purified by the righteous thinking of a long line of faithful souls who strive with all their might to do the will of God. There is no promise that under the Mosaic dispensation there will be a full realization of the redemptive process such as was accomplished by Jesus Christ. Moses represents man on the way to redemption, viewing the possibilities of full regeneration but yet unable to demonstrate them. “I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither.”
Why could not Moses go into the Promised Land? Moses was angry and unforgiving toward the children of Israel. He did not express the loving-kindness of Jehovah toward them in the wilderness. When they thirsted for the truth he impatiently smote the rock and brought forth the water of life for them. All destructive thoughts must be wiped out of our consciousness before we can come into the new dispensation and enter into the kingdom of the heavens. The law of the new dispensation is love.
Applied to man individually, what is the Promised Land? What is the primal law of its redemption? The Promised Land symbolizes the perfect body. The body is very sensitive to thought. Destructive thought tears down the organism. The primal law of its redemption is constructive thinking.
September 25, 1932: Deuteronomy 32:48-52
Our golden text reads: “Precious in the sight of Jehovah Is the death of his saints.” Is this an accurate translation of the original? No. In a translation of the Old Testament by Isaac Leeser, which is based upon the studies of the best Jewish authorities, this text reads: “Grievous in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his pious ones.” This translation is no doubt the correct one, and is in accord with the teachings of the Bible as a whole, while the translation of this verse as found in the American Standard Version belies the Bible teaching concerning life.
What is meant by Jehovah's command to Moses to go up into a certain mountain and look over the land of Canaan, but to die where he was? The meaning of the Abarim range of mountains is “regions beyond,” representing exalted states of consciousness. Moses attained a very high intellectual perception of Truth, but did not lay hold of the substance of the Promised Land, represented by Canaan.
When Moses, the guiding light of the intellect, loses his efficient hold upon life, what takes his place in the consciousness of the developing soul? When the intellectual perception of Truth (Moses) is found unequal to the task of fulfilling the divine law, this perception is succeeded by the activity of the I AM (Joshua). Joshua in the Old Testament, means the same as Jesus in the new.
In verse 51 is given the reason why Moses could not go over into the Promised Land. Explain. When the Israelites cried out for water in the wilderness, the Lord said to Moses, “Speak; ye unto the rock before their eyes that it give forth its water.” Instead of using the word, Moses took his rod and smote the rock, and called the children of Israel rebels. The intellect (Moses) fails to realize and use the creative power of the Word, and substitutes some external means, represented by the rod. This results in conflicting and rebellious thoughts (rebels).
Transcribed by Lloyd Kinder on 02-01-2014
